On Saturday, December 15, 2018, the Collectif Droits Humains pour tou-te-s (Human Rights for All Collective) organized the third edition of its public speaking competition at Paris City Hall. 150 people attended the event, which followed International Human Rights Day on December 10, and to which Equipop actively contributed as a member of the Collective. The common goal: to replace the expression "droits de l'Homme" (rights of man) with "droits humains" (human rights), which makes women, their rights, and their struggles more visible. After three years of campaigning, a clear shift can be felt in the discourse of public authorities.
Nearly 150 people braved the cold on Saturday morning to attend the third edition of the Collectif Droits Humains pour tou-te-s (Human Rights for All Collective) public speaking competition. The event was organized in partnership with the Paris City Hall, the High Council for Gender Equality, and the magazine Causette.
A sold-out event
This year, the ten candidates competed on the theme of "Human Rights": violence against women. The jury, chaired by Hélène Bidard, Deputy Mayor of Paris in charge of all issues relating to gender equality, the fight against discrimination, and human rights, and with actress and director Eva Darlan as prosecutor, rewarded the three most convincing pleadings.
Here are the winners of the 2018 edition:
- Juliette Blanchard
- Stéphane Vandendriessch
- Oriane Wegner
Winners of the 2018 competition (from left to right): Oriane Wegner, Stéphane Vandendriessch, Juliette Blanchard
The success of this sold-out event demonstrates the relevance of this issue, at a time when the use of the term "human rights," with or without capital letters, continues to render women, their rights, and their struggles invisible (see the Collective's argument).
The trend is beginning to reverse at the government level.
For some time now, however, the French authorities have begun to reverse this trend. On several occasions, Jean-Yves Le Drian has used the expression "human rights," as have Emmanuel Macron and Marlène Schiappa.
On December 10, on International Human Rights Day, the Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, Jean-Yves Le Drian, announced the adoption of a new human rights and development strategy:
“Today we have adopted an interministerial strategy on human rights and development that aims to integrate a rights-based approach into our cooperation and development aid activities.”
To date, the exact title and content of this strategy have not yet been revealed, but it could be that this strategy is the first significant step by French institutions towards adopting the term "human rights."
Beyond public speaking competitions, the Collective's advocacy efforts are beginning to bear fruit. They clearly enable us to address key issues that go beyond language, such as the place of women's and girls' rights in our societies and in national and international public policy.
